Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor

Written by Ally Carter

Narrated by Laura Knight Keating

April didn’t mean to start the fire. She wasn’t the one who broke
the vase. April didn’t ask to go live in a big, creepy mansion with a bunch of orphans
who just don’t understand that April isn’t like them. After all, April’s mother is coming
back for her someday very soon.
All April has to do is find the clues her mother left inside the massive mansion. But
Winterborne House is hiding more than one secret, so April and her friends are going
to have to work together to unravel the riddle of a missing heir, a creepy legend, and a
mysterious key before the only home they’ve ever known is lost to them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980015703

Ally Carter

Ally Carter writes books about people who fall in love (while trying to stay alive.) After more than a decade of writing beloved YA titles like I’d Tell You I Love You, but Then I’d Have to Kill You and Heist Society, she launched onto the adult scene with The Blonde Identity. A long-time lover of the holiday rom-com, Ally is also the writer of the Netflix original movie, A Castle for Christmas.

Reviews for Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor

[Becky Baumgartner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A delicious mystery adventure with a precocious group of orphans, a missing heir, a fortune waiting to be claimed, a big old mansion, and secrets galore. The narrator did an excellent job with the voices in this one.

[funstm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What the hell? Who the hell is her mother? Seriously she solves the mystery of the key but not who the fk her mother is? If you can ignore that, then this is an enjoyable well contained mystery. I liked the characters, the dialogue was funny and the mystery was exciting - even if somewhat predictable. There were a few hints at romance that didn't really seem to go anywhere. Would've been stronger without the hints between April and Tim. Or Colin and Sadie. But maybe I'm reading too much into it. April was kind of a contradiction - she was both street smart and stunningly naive. That was frustrating. And the characters were somewhat flat in parts. It's not a fantastic book but it was an easy enjoyable read. 3 stars.

[ftbooklover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When April's mother left her at the orphanage, the only thing she gave her was a mysterious key, and then told her that she would be back soon. April believed her mother and has not given up hope that she will one day show up to take her home. In the meantime, April has been in 12 different homes in 10 years, but after setting fire to a museum when she broke in after hours to try to open a small box with her key, Isabella Nelson takes April to Winterborne House. Along with Tim and Violet who are also going to Winterborne House, they arrive to find an energetic girl named Sadie who already lives there. Winterborne House is strange with many secrets, and April believes it has a connection with the key her mother gave her 10 years before.
In her debut middle grade novel, Ally Carter has taken the elements that make her YA books so enjoyable and applied them to this book. The characters are quirky and fun, but they all have secrets of their own. The mystery of the Winterborne Home leads to other questions about who is the last surviving member of the Winterborne family and what does April's mysterious key unlock. The story includes several sequences of fast-paced action and suspense. Overall, this is a very good middle grade novel and the beginning of a promising series.